Water Scarcity Poses Threat to Agriculture in Yemen

Recent Gulf News article on agricultural self-sufficiency in Yemen.

see original text here: http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidGN_19022011_200228/Water%20scarcity%20poses%20a%20threat%20to%20agriculture%20in%20Yemen


Water scarcity poses a threat to agriculture in Yemen
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Sunday, Feb 20, 2011

Gulf News

Potential for self-sufficiency very remote

Dubai: Despite oil revenues dominating the country’s income, agriculture remains an important sector of Yemen’s economy, generating more than 20 per cent of GDP and employing more than the half of the working population.

But the sector is built on uncertainty due to the lack of arable land, scarcity of water, periodic droughts, and difficult terrain.

Only three per cent of Yemen’s land area is arable, thus Yemen’s potential for agricultural self-sufficiency is very remote.

This means that the country is heavily dependent on food imports. Moreover, a number of environmental problems hamper growth in this sector, such as soil erosion, sand dune encroachment, and deforestation. And as a result of low levels of rainfall, agriculture in Yemen relies heavily on the extraction of groundwater, a resource that is being depleted.

The use of irrigation has made fruit and vegetables Yemen’s primary cash crops. With the rise in the output of irrigated crops, the production of traditional rain-fed crops such as cereals has declined.

Dominant role

Another issue is the production of Qat, a heavily cultivated plant that produces natural stimulants when its leaves are chewed. Its production saw a rise in the last years of the financial and economic crisis and currently is estimated to account for around 7 per cent of GDP.

According to the World Bank, cultivation of this plant plays a dominant role in Yemen’s agricultural economy, employing an estimated 150,000 people while consuming an estimated 30 per cent of irrigation water and displacing land areas that could otherwise be used for exportable coffee, fruit and vegetables.
Yemen is infamous for its Qat consumption. About 80 per cent of the male population and 45 per cent of the female population are regular Qat chewers.

The World Bank estimates that Yemenis spend a 10th of their income on the plant and lose about 25 per cent of potential work hours to Qat chewing.

Traditionally, Yemen was famous for its coffee, shipped from the port of Al Mukha, from which the English word mocha derives. However, as a high-cost producer, Yemen is not yet able to internationally compete in marketing its produce.

By Arno Maierbrugger, Deputy Business Editor